In lieu of doing a BT, request the money be direct deposited into your checking account and PIF your credit card that's charging you 24% interest. It will take less time usually it has a 24 hour turn around. You could also request SP CLIs on your current cards to help lower your utilization while you are paying down/off your balances. I think you have a solid plan. The only thing I would add is to ensure going forward that you do not charge more in a month than you can afford to PIF every month.
You may want to take some time to create a budget and think about your financial goals. See you in the garden!
@beautifulblaquepearl wrote:In lieu of doing a BT, request the money be direct deposited into your checking account and PIF your credit card that's charging you 24% interest. It will take less time usually it has a 24 hour turn around. You could also request SP CLIs on your current cards to help lower your utilization while you are paying down/off your balances. I think you have a solid plan. The only thing I would add is to ensure going forward that you do not charge more in a month than you can afford to PIF every month.
You may want to take some time to create a budget and think about your financial goals. See you in the garden!
Excellent advice. And, also set up a savings account with good interest (I have this with Alliant, separate from main checking at the moment). Even if you only put 50 in a month, it adds up quickly. An emergency fund helps when you charge too much.
@beautifulblaquepearl wrote:In lieu of doing a BT, request the money be direct deposited into your checking account and PIF your credit card that's charging you 24% interest. It will take less time usually it has a 24 hour turn around. You could also request SP CLIs on your current cards to help lower your utilization while you are paying down/off your balances. I think you have a solid plan. The only thing I would add is to ensure going forward that you do not charge more in a month than you can afford to PIF every month.
You may want to take some time to create a budget and think about your financial goals. See you in the garden!
The worst part is the majority of the debt is from years ago. The majority is from years ago and I'd pay more than the minimum but never the full amount or once it creeped up to the level it is now I'd pay enough to cover the current charges and a token amount to cover "old" balance and prioritized other things. I'm tired of carrying it and the realization that I need to get rid of it ASAP. Once you get a large enough balance it's crazy how much interest 24% can rack up each month. I can completely understand how some could get over their heads w cc. I guess I'm sort of lucky I preferred to see my bank accounts grow so I have some money I can throw at them now and use the 0% from chase wo having to use the full term to get everything paid down.
@Imperfectfuture wrote:
@beautifulblaquepearl wrote:In lieu of doing a BT, request the money be direct deposited into your checking account and PIF your credit card that's charging you 24% interest. It will take less time usually it has a 24 hour turn around. You could also request SP CLIs on your current cards to help lower your utilization while you are paying down/off your balances. I think you have a solid plan. The only thing I would add is to ensure going forward that you do not charge more in a month than you can afford to PIF every month.
You may want to take some time to create a budget and think about your financial goals. See you in the garden!
Excellent advice. And, also set up a savings account with good interest (I have this with Alliant, separate from main checking at the moment). Even if you only put 50 in a month, it adds up quickly. An emergency fund helps when you charge too much.
I'm finding that I can get better rates w MM checking accounts than savings accounts. I do have a couple of those spread out among institutions which is where I'm pulling the lump sum I'm planning on doing in conjunction w the BT. It seems like psychologically I valued money in the bank over paying down the cc as long as the cc didn't make large jumps in the balance - credit could dry up regardless of what I do but cash will be there type of thing. I guess I just reached by breaking point with that mentality but doing a hybrid approach so I don't too uncomfortable with the switch - transfer part of it to the 0% and continue to make $x00 in payments to have that balance paid off in 6-18 months but take a lump sum out of savings to help pay the remainder.
@Imperfectfuture wrote:
@beautifulblaquepearl wrote:In lieu of doing a BT, request the money be direct deposited into your checking account and PIF your credit card that's charging you 24% interest. It will take less time usually it has a 24 hour turn around. You could also request SP CLIs on your current cards to help lower your utilization while you are paying down/off your balances. I think you have a solid plan. The only thing I would add is to ensure going forward that you do not charge more in a month than you can afford to PIF every month.
You may want to take some time to create a budget and think about your financial goals. See you in the garden!
Excellent advice. And, also set up a savings account with good interest (I have this with Alliant, separate from main checking at the moment). Even if you only put 50 in a month, it adds up quickly. An emergency fund helps when you charge too much.
Thanks! Every now and then I get it right.
@Anonymous wrote:
@beautifulblaquepearl wrote:In lieu of doing a BT, request the money be direct deposited into your checking account and PIF your credit card that's charging you 24% interest. It will take less time usually it has a 24 hour turn around. You could also request SP CLIs on your current cards to help lower your utilization while you are paying down/off your balances. I think you have a solid plan. The only thing I would add is to ensure going forward that you do not charge more in a month than you can afford to PIF every month.
You may want to take some time to create a budget and think about your financial goals. See you in the garden!
The worst part is the majority of the debt is from years ago. The majority is from years ago and I'd pay more than the minimum but never the full amount or once it creeped up to the level it is now I'd pay enough to cover the current charges and a token amount to cover "old" balance and prioritized other things. I'm tired of carrying it and the realization that I need to get rid of it ASAP. Once you get a large enough balance it's crazy how much interest 24% can rack up each month. I can completely understand how some could get over their heads w cc. I guess I'm sort of lucky I preferred to see my bank accounts grow so I have some money I can throw at them now and use the 0% from chase wo having to use the full term to get everything paid down.
I don't have the calculations but you have been doing yourself a disservice because you've been paying 24% interest a month on a large credit card balance. I'm sure someone will chime in with actual values. The money you've been saving would have been better spent paying down your credit card balance. Maybe not all, but some of it at least should have been applied to your debt. It may be in your best interest to curtail your spending and use that money to pay down your balance. It's great that you will be utilizing a 0% BT offer, but I feel you may have been living beyond your means especially since you say this is old debt. I don't know if you were earning rewards and that's why you continued to use your credit card. However, the interest you were being charged canceled out any rewards you may have earned.
@beautifulblaquepearl wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@beautifulblaquepearl wrote:In lieu of doing a BT, request the money be direct deposited into your checking account and PIF your credit card that's charging you 24% interest. It will take less time usually it has a 24 hour turn around. You could also request SP CLIs on your current cards to help lower your utilization while you are paying down/off your balances. I think you have a solid plan. The only thing I would add is to ensure going forward that you do not charge more in a month than you can afford to PIF every month.
You may want to take some time to create a budget and think about your financial goals. See you in the garden!
The worst part is the majority of the debt is from years ago. The majority is from years ago and I'd pay more than the minimum but never the full amount or once it creeped up to the level it is now I'd pay enough to cover the current charges and a token amount to cover "old" balance and prioritized other things. I'm tired of carrying it and the realization that I need to get rid of it ASAP. Once you get a large enough balance it's crazy how much interest 24% can rack up each month. I can completely understand how some could get over their heads w cc. I guess I'm sort of lucky I preferred to see my bank accounts grow so I have some money I can throw at them now and use the 0% from chase wo having to use the full term to get everything paid down.
I don't have the calculations but you have been doing yourself a disservice because you've been paying 24% interest a month on a large credit card balance. I'm sure someone will chime in with actual values. The money you've been saving would have been better spent paying down your credit card balance. Maybe not all, but some of it at least should have been applied to your debt. It may be in your best interest to curtail your spending and use that money to pay down your balance. It's great that you will be utilizing a 0% BT offer, but I feel you may have been living beyond your means especially since you say this is old debt. I don't know if you were earning rewards and that's why you continued to use your credit card. However, the interest you were being charged canceled out any rewards you may have earned.
I can fully understand your position. The majority of the debt came from years ago due to two main actions - 2008/2009 economy where I switched jobs and took a temp pay cut for one year but had a guaranteed raise at 1-4 years to leave a company (and year 1 raise would put me back at my then current salary) that was going through a $12B cost reduction during that time and using the cc as a stop gap for making sure monthly payments were made on my reoccurring bills when switching banks a few years after that. I made the mistake of not using the money I had in the bank to pay off the balances earlier; I prioritizing growing one balance over shrinking another. I was paying between 140-170 a month in interest and still using it for regular spend so any "serious" monthly payments of $500-1000 weren't doing anything to the overall balance. Hence the lump sum of a few $k to get the balance down, transfer to the 0% so those $500+ payments actually do something, & using debit/cash only until that is resolved and I can reasses what categories my regular monthly spend falls in and determine what the best tool would be going forward.